


run me out, run me down

by oceansinmychest



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguity, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bitterness, Character Study, Female-Centric, Lilly Lives, One Shot, POV Female Character, Remorse, Set After Season 3, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 11:24:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15435990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceansinmychest/pseuds/oceansinmychest
Summary: Like a woman scorned, Lilly reflects on the past while trying her damnedest to move on. Until she runs into an old ghost: a girl with a worn baseball cap.





	run me out, run me down

**Author's Note:**

> I deviated from book/comic canon though I enjoy them. I adore the complexity of her character. I’m pretty excited for the final season of the game.

_They left me to die._

Nostalgia and memory leave an acrid taste in her mouth. It’s metallic, reminiscent of Dad’s blood splashed across her face. All her regret cannot be reversed. Worn down soles tread a little rougher. With each memory, she harshly stomps down her combat boots which split in rebellion. Duct-tape makes for a useful remedy.

An old question repeats itself, her voice hoarse from disuse. Again, she chokes on the exhaust. The fumes that suffocates her lungs and left her red-eyed, bleary-eyed. In her mind, the RV zooms off like a highspeed getaway. The defacto leader defected. Simple as that. Turns out she wasn’t above murder after all.

“How could they leave me?”

She trusted Lee. A man with good intentions looking out for a girl turned stray. He fucked her over. Hot-headed Kenny tested her temper. The Floridian heat rendered him a loose cannon. She intended (Lord, was she _misunderstood_ ) to protect her ragtag group of survivors, not to rip them apart with vindictive force. A house divided can never stand. Sentenced to isolation, the lot of them labelled her a pariah.

All that senseless, endless death haunts her. She never meant to pull the trigger (well, she had in Ben’s case; he made for the perfect patsy). Complicated people do complicated things.

The cycle goes like this: re-experience, avoidance, hyper-arousal, and then a fresh stab of negativity. She neglects the signs. Saw a therapist once and vowed to do it never again. In the apocalypse, these things don't matter.

On the long road ahead, she glances at the wreckage of a car, she doesn’t entertain past-lives: a story of who could’ve occupied that old, busted cherry red Chevy. In that blazing summer, she took to the route before diving into the forest. Mosquitoes die without enough living to feed on. She’s glad for that.

She plays over these memories, because they’re the only damn things keeping her company. There’s no moral of the story for the night she aimed at the head. She had been scared, she had been reckless, she had been angry. Carley’s just another ghost.

The Georgian sun cuts her stinging, sunken eyes which reminds her of the Icarus myth she fucking hates. College is far past her. So is the air force. Still, she misses the days of wing kings while working on the base.

Less danger in the woods, steering clear of the shitty city, she takes the high road. She comes back not like some Lazarus reborn, coated in sooth and ash, but caked in dirt and grime and reeking of the dead. It strikes her cheeks and forehead under the guide of an anointment.

Off the main road, she distrusts old barns. Once you encounter a family of cannibals, the negative association is too strong to break. With a heavy heart, she reflects. Lilly misses her dad. Some days, the pain of loss fills her. Eclipses her. Those days, she lashes out at walkers, angry and howling in her grief. A Morrigan bitch.

Death is like that: it takes and it takes.

Walking in the forest alone, a falling tree doesn’t make a sound; there’s a forlorn moan that multiplies. Keeps her up at night despite the fact that she knows that some sleep is necessary for survival. The tip of her boot nearly connects with a root. The tree’s branch shrugs from the ground. She utters a low, crisp curse.

From one snakepit to another, you can’t trust survivor settlements. Lilly’s learned her lesson the hard way. No more vacant motels for her. The shadow of Woodbury hangs over her. No road’s paved with good intentions. See, she’s dealt with her fair share of bureaucratic bullshit. You build over the bones: a bleak optimism covered up by realism. So, she left.

Left alone to her thoughts, they rattle around in her brain. The sound of every bullet ricochets in her skull. Reverberates like the old wind chime that hung outside Dad’s porch. Operating with a certain militant edge, hypervigilance preserves her. Keeps her going. Akin to a wound up toy soldier, she keeps going and going. She pushes for the water, pushes for the rain. She doesn’t know why, she simply  _does_.

In the deep south, summertime strikes hardest. You could choke on the humidity. Now that she’s starving, she does. Set in her ways, she chooses to migrate. Go north. If it’s colder, the dead can’t resurrect, right?

How’d Georgia’s motto go? Wisdom, Justice, Moderation. Well, she fucked up those things. Maps, peach preserves, and sparse ammunition fill her faded, torn rucksack. Supplies run thin these days. Scavenging in this wasteland rewards her with few merits.

But it’s fall now. Curled, crisp autumn leaves fall down.

People come and go. Some things remain constant. Thirst, for one.

Hellbent on heading north, she persists. Finds pisswater whiskey and counts her blessings. This shit burned her nostrils, but she took a grateful sip anyway. The rest becomes fuel for makeshift molotovs. It was by no means the good stuff Dad used to chug before he came clean. Larry’s belligerence, however, remained with him until the saltlick took his head.

Mom left, Dad was a prick. Lilly harbors that resentment and carries it with her.

Hunger hollows out her belly. Her cheekbones strain against her sallow skin like knives. A hunter’s vest, several sizes too big, clings to her body. There’s bullets stashed away within. A few crumbs of jerky. It’s not enough to make a living. Threadbare clothing clings to her skin and bones. What differentiates her from the living dead?

In the pines, she doesn’t find a little girl sleeping. The grip on her rifle turns her knuckles bone white. Her eyes fly to the cap, first. Then, to the face. This world’s wasted away childhood innocence.

Lilly notices the pigtails close to her head.

_She’s kept her hair short._

Taller, thinner, leaner, a jean jacket graces those scrawny shoulders. My, how she’s grown. Those wide, golden eyes have hardened. It makes Lilly’s throat knot.

There’s a notch marking her cheek, raised pink against her skin. Lilly has her share of scars; she doesn’t share them. They’re too ugly and twisted.

Run down, worn out, Lilly swallows. Her own hair pulled back with a band that’s started to stretch too loose. She doesn’t cry. Out of tears, they no longer serve a purpose. Her gaze focuses on the barrel of a gun aimed at her. It’s a familiar scene. Even stranger to be on the other end.

She maintains a calm demeanor, her voice scratchy. In the dim glow of a campfire, shadows place a death mask over her face.

“Clementine? Is that you?”


End file.
